Priceline…kinda like buying crack in church!

Have you ever Pricelined a hotel room? Price-lining is not for the faint of heart. My daughter, Stephanie and her husband Jon do it all the time. Most recently they got a swanky hotel room in the NYC. It’s just 1 block away from the starting point of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. They got it for half the normal price and they’ll be there the week of Thanksgiving!

In case you don’t know about Priceline, you choose an area and a date. Enter how many stars you want the hotel to be, and a price you want to pay, Then you put in your credit card number and press ENTER! In a few seconds you get a confirmation and the name of a hotel. (Or it tells you to add a few bucks to your bid and you do it all over again) It’s a crap-shoot as to what hotel you get. One never knows!

Well, I wanted to go away for a night with Mike to Stone Mountain Park. It’s beautiful in November. They turn on their (1 zillion) Christmas lights in a couple of weeks. We went last year and it was a perfect way to get into the Christmas spirit.

This is us last year! Don’t we look just giddy about the lights?

)

There are two Marriott Hotels in the park. One is called The Evergreen. We’ve stayed there a dozen times. It’s beautiful and cozy. And mostly, it’s familiar. And I’m a creature of habit. Usually, I simply call the Evergreen and make a reservation. But Stephie suggested that I use Priceline and save some money. But like I said, you may not get the hotel you want. You can’t specify a hotel name. Only and area and Stone Mountain is a lot bigger than just Stone Mountain Park!

Now, the Evergreen is really nice, but it’s still only 3 1/2 stars, so every time I started to do Priceline I panicked. What if the Red Roof Inn is considered a 3 1/2 star hotel? (Nothing wrong with the Red Roof Inn, it’s just not in Stone Mountain Park!) What if we get a crappy hotel? I never could bring myself to press ENTER and seal the deal. Turns out you have to be a real adventurer to use price-line! I just didn’t have it in me.

Well today, at Stephie’s house, she offered to do it for me. “It’ll be fun” she said. “I”m sure we’ll get the right hotel…pretty sure anyway.”

So she started the process. I sat there watching her…it seemed like it took FOREVER! So many questions, so many screens. When she got to the last button, my heart was racing. I kid you not, I was sweating like a….well I was really sweating.

As she hit “enter” I jumped up and flung myself on the bed face first screaming into the pillow. “Just tell me, did we get it? Hurry up tell me!!!” She was laughing hysterically. I continued to yell. And yell. And yell.

For the love of all that’s Holy, it took stinkin forever. I was kicking my feet and hyperventilating by the time she jumped up and said, “Yes! We got the Evergreen! See Mom, wasn’t that exciting? Wasn’t it a little bit of a rush!”

Yea, like being chained to railroad tracks, or buying crack at church. That was the most nerve racking 2 minutes I’ve had in … well in at least 24 hours! Oh, and we got the Evergreen for about a hundred dollars less than usual so I suppose that’s worth the six months it took off my life!

Well I must say that I laughed when I read this and believe me – be glad you got the evergreen – priceline IS a crap shoot, you never know what you are gonna get! I do love Stone Mountain and I hope you two have a blast.

What I learned about using Priceline is that you go to Hotels.com or some other site and look up all the 3 or 4 star hotels in the area you want to go. Make sure they are all ones you can live with and then go for it. We did it down in Buckhead and got a great price on the Waverly.